~ A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you … John 13:34

Modernism: Lamentabile Sane

One of the many unattractive things about the Internet for a Catholic is the presence of those who insist on a hermeneutic of rupture. At its most extreme are those who claim the Seat of St Peter has been empty since some date in the past. These people not only claim to be Catholics, but they claim to be the only Catholics and to offer, to them, infallibel ‘proofs’ that they are right.. Does the Magisterium of the Church say otherwise? Do those set in authority above them say otherwise? Does the global Catholic Church say otherwise? Well, no matter, as with all conspiracy theorists, these people will claim it all ‘proves’ they are right. With this there is no argument, and frankly, best not to have any engagement. If they have invented a virtual Catholic Church which excludes the actual Catholic Church, and they are happy with that, all that is to be done is to pray for them and to marvel at the mindset which allows anyone to imagine they have a unique access to a ‘truth’ which only their fellow-conspiracy theorists buy.

Not quite so far along the spectrum on that hermeneutic are those who claim that the Church has been captured by ‘modernism’. The Papal encyclical Lamentabile Sane provides 65 propositions which, one might take to be characteristic of ‘modernism’. This is not, I fear, as clear as it might be, but before moving on to an encyclical which is, let’s see why that is. If we take proposition number 2:

The Church’s interpretation of the Sacred Books is by no means to be rejected; nevertheless, it is subject to the more accurate judgment and correction of the exegetes

What is meant by the first clause? Where is one to find ‘the Church’s interpretation of the Sacred Books’? Does it mean that, wherever that is to be found, nothing anyone had written since 1907 should be considered? That would put all Catholic theological teaching on the subject out of business – assuming, of course, that one could locate this elusive place where the interpretation of the Church is stored. It seems clear that what is going on here is that in the early twentieth century some Catholics were worried that Bible study was leading people away from the Church and wanted to close the stable door lest the horse bolt. In practice, the Church and its theologians and Bible scholars have continued to apply the eye of faith to study of the Sacred Texts, and all have benefitted from this. There is never any need for the Truth to fear the intellect – as, indeed, condemnation 32 suggests is the case.

Or let us take number 22:

The dogmas the Church holds out as revealed are not truths which have fallen from heaven. They are an interpretation of religious facts which the human mind has acquired by laborious effort

Again, it is quite hard to know what such a loose formulation of words mean, or even what the first sentence and the second have to do with each other. They are, at best, uneasily juxtaposed: why do the dogmas of the Church have to be one or the other. If they just ‘fell from heaven’ one might expect to see the Apostolic Fathers enunciating the Creed as the Fathers at Nicaea did, and indeed, for the Fathers at Constantinople to have simply reiterated it. Instead, we see a developing understanding of what, for example, St John meant when he said that the Word was in the beginning with God and the Word was God. Now, that process was not in any way analogous to what the second sentence says. There was a divine mystery given us in Sacred Scripture, and the moving of the Spirit in the Church led it to a greater appreciation of the Truth which came to be embodied in the Creed. So, yes, one might well say that in this way ‘the fell from Heaven’, but that would be a crude way of describing an inspiring – and inspired – process.

Read through the list as you might, I cannot find where any of the post-1958 Popes have signed up to any of the proportions. Of course, one sees very clearly that many of those errors are there in our society as a whole, and perhaps there are individuals in the Church guilty of them – but I should be interested in a demonstration as to which of the 65 errors listed have been espoused by a modern Pope, or, indeed, in an authoritative document from the Magisterium. But perhaps I am missing the point?

Is ‘modernism’ simply a ‘boo word’ for those whose preferred style of Catholicism is that they think prevailed at some point at which they think the world was better ordered? Nostalgia is a powerful thing – but I am not sure it should be allowed to detract from the real hermeneutic of continuity in the Church. Sometimes, if you find yourself asking how x can be reconciled with y, the answer might not be ‘it can’t the Pope is a heretic’, but ‘better and more Catholic minds than mine see no opposition, perhaps I am missing something? What was that word, docility, wonder what it meant?’

This, however, is but a prelude to a much better Papal document on the dangers of Modernism, Pascendi Domenici Gregis, which unlike this one, sets out a clear target and some excellent arguments in favour of its case. Not all Papal documents are equally lucid.

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80 thoughts on “Modernism: Lamentabile Sane”

I can only comment that a number of Popes saw a clear and present danger to the souls of the faithful in the erruption of rationalism as being opposed to the supernatural. This was lamented mostly in the area of Scripture but also in the realm of Church Teaching. They felt impelled to oppose these new teachings which had made their way into Catholic colleges and universities and thus we see these documents appear. These were not the only ones, of course. There was PRAESTANTIA SCRIPTURAE and SPIRITUS PARACLITuS as well and I’m sure there were others. My guess is, though I am no historian who has rummaged throught the writings making their way around the world in the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century, that much of what has us ‘stumped’ as to what certain passages meant were easity deciphered at the time. My guess is that the words were from the mouths of those whom they were condemning who plucked these phrases from various works and repeated them wholesale. It is obvious that Catholicism as well as all Chrisitanity was rocked by Darwin and the thinkers who came after him and that there was great doubt in the validity of Scripture at the time. It was the beginning of a drift away from Christian teaching and a rejection of the notion of any teaching being of divine origin much less being infallible. I don’t think we can adequately understand these texts on their own without having been in the midst of the intellectual upheaval at the time.

Part of the problem was that because the Churches had become used to having an intellectual monopoly, they had also become used to just banning opinions and books they disagreed with. This left them very ill-equipped to deal with the intellectual challenges of the rationalists and secularists – and their thinkers ran rings round our thinkers. The RCC carried on banning books and proscribing certain authors as though we were still in an era when that could work, and there are, alas, still some who want to pull the drawbridge up.

We have nothing fear from science, rationalism or anything else – my main fear is too many in our own church appear to think we do.

We may not have anything to fear except the long pregnant pause without an adequate response. It seems to me that the Church has always been slow to counter a charge that is novel. So what to do whilst we raise up theologians and churchmen to write about a tsunami of new ideas that came crashing in on us at once? I think it was all the Church could do to buy time. We were not the only Christians rocked by the events of their day and I don’t think many of the others put up much of a defense either other than saying that they were wrong and would go to hell etc. In some ways, we have countered most of their arguments but some still linger and are still being argued. Perhaps what you see as the trouble makers from the traditional wing is an extension of the arguements that the Church needs to have and needs to find adequate answers to for the future. I find there are interesting arguments being made from all sides but someone is right and someone is wrong or both sides are wrong.

Because Christians had grown used to just shutting the opposition up it meant we were very ill-equipped to deal with it when we were no longer able to do so; that’s one of my main problems with the censorship mentality – it is ultimately self-defeating.

We can never stop thinking and debating, and we can never convince those who do not believe there is anything beyond this world that there is. But what we can do is to impress upon them that their caricature that we are narrow-minded bigots who fear debate because we know we shall lose is wrong. Here we, and the Anglicans do well. I cringe, I have to say, when I see some of what I would call Boscoites debating the likes of Dawkins – but we, thank the Lord, put up a better showing than we did.

That brings up the question of how this world has changed immensely. What we call shutting up was more an act of keeping the conversation between the Church and the philosopher, scientist, novelist, theologian, educators and away from the laity where the sheep might easily be led astray or completely out of Christianity altogether. It is a different world now and the people (the few who are interested) have ready access to these arguments that were heretofore only found in the books of those interested in such matters or perhaps a column or debate in a newspaper. Now, I don’t think that this is too bad in its essence where the debate takes place in the Catholic websites but blogs and media make it far harder to sheild the lambs from the wolves. I guess what I am saying is that there are appropriate venues of such discussions and some that are harmful: I would expect that the Church has that in mind and listens to the arguments when weil made and discounts that which is not. But sadly, there is the forum of those who have no earthly idea of the intricacies of the arguments. I read both sides and I expect our Church leaders to as well. I, for instance found the latest Ross Douthat piece one of the more interesting takes on the exhortation that I have read if for nothing else that it went at the problems from an entirely different angle. I don’t think that because the overerall implications are negative is any reason to discount the points made and it seems to me that someting needs further clarification. Where we used to answer yes, yes or no, no we have found a way to say maybe, sometimes, perhaps and that leaves ordinary believers in a particular quandary . . . not to mention the priests and bishops who have weighed in recently on both sides. I await the digestion of these views in some scholarly texts which are sure to come out of all of this. So until that arguments are fully made, I, for one, would like to see how all this works its way out in the hierarchy of the Church. Some arguments are better than other and will need be evaluated but for the average joe in the pew, they will sadly receive the MSM version or their individual pastors version, if they pay any attention to these things at all. I find that obfuscation and ambiguity is something that Christ would not have embraced in ‘feeding my sheep’. But that is me. Until that fog has lifted then many of us will have little to fear but the prospect of lost sheep who get lost in such inclement circumstances which is regrettable. So at least the censorship mentality was meant, obviously, for the laity and not for the studied Churchmen which studied these new ideas. Otherwise, how would they have known about them to issue such documents? Did you read Douthat by the way? I hadn’t seen that argument, or analysis before. I find it fascinating.

I’m up for air, being about half way through Pascendi Domenici Gregis. My goodness, what a dense and illuminating document. The primary application is of course in our churches, but there is also much to recommend it in a secular context.

True, and this is not susceptible to making a video from. I see that in the academy as well, that’s part of what I meant when I said this has secular uses as well. In part, I think many cannot set aside their partisanship enough to read the words. Of course, that happens to me as well.

Thing is, Servus, no matter how well meaning he is (or I am, or you are) the lens we view things thought always creeps in. That is not saying he is not wonderful, nor it it saying I won’t read him, just not yet. 🙂

That’s fine. To each his own. I’ve read the doctrine twice and still find it laborious. I personally got, in modern English, a way to read the gist of the document in short order and take away more useful bits than I did when I read the original. Maybe its just me.

The document is definitely worth the read. But I, like you, found it tough going. Some of it is the English translation, I’m sure. It is hard at times to figure out the subjects and objects from sentence to sentence. 🙂

Aidan Nichols is very well known on our side of the pond. The first thing to do is know how his name goes… 🙂 The next thing to do is see how a Catholic writer disects and analyses Anglicanism, successfully identifying themes of help to Catholics who would better understand Patristics and Tradition if they would just DO THE READING.. Start with “The Panther and the Hind” (1993 ?)

This is a primer for Catholics who would understand Anglicanism. If you won’t, then don’t. If you would, then read it.

Indeed that is good place to begin . . . I reverse names a lot for some odd reason. 🙂

I have only read his book, Looking at the Liturgy, as his books were rather rare in our Catholic Bookstores. Other than that we get articles reprinted from time to time. I suppose now with Amazon all his titles are within our grasp. I read a synopsis of The Panther and the Hind and it does sound interesting. I may take you up on the challenge once I finish the unread books that are sitting here awaiting my attention. Thanks.

If people, mainly Catholics, would stop reading what he writes through spectacles fogged by their own hot breath of suspicion, and if they would recognise that all he says is founded in a hermeneutic of continuity.

Even though im not a card carrying cathol, I disrespect people who say they are of a religion and then cut out important parts of their religions beliefs simply because of political correctness. They are nothing but vomit, to be spewn out of the mouth. If one is to be catholic….be catholic.

YOUR DESPICABLE NASTY PHRASE “Jew loving Catholics” should have you removed from this place by any moderator with a sense of wjat is appropriate. However, you can safely assume that you can spew any bile you like in this place and get away with it. Why? Because you are regarded as the Court Fool. The village idiot. The theological detective wjo lurls in the corner and farts to amuse everyone.

My mother was a Jew and therefore I am a Jew by birth. I became a Christian by conversion and am a long suffering and hard working Catholic by philosophical reasoning and faith revelation.

DON’T YOU EVER REFER TO “JEW LOVING CATHOLICS” AS AS DEROGATORY RACIST TERM AGAIN, YOU HORRID NASTY LITTLE WORM.

That’s rite, the catholic church has been no friend to the jews. My lord is a Jew. I, personally have no ill will to the jewish people. Good brother Gareth forgets that one of his Holy Fathers , in the 1800s, rounded up the jews of Rome and put them in a ghetto.

Hey good brother Gareth, what do you have to say about that?

Nothing, as usual. Just condemn me. I guess that makes you feel better about the rich legacy of the religion you cling to.

Gareth – in Bosco-language, I don’t believe that he has anything against Jews; it is much more likely to be a derogatory term against Catholics. After all, it is well known that Catholics don’t seem to like Jews very much: c/f the papal encyclical

(Encyclical of Pope Benedict XIV promulgated on June 14, 1751). This encyclical (of course) says much more about the Catholic church of the time than it does about the Jews. The phrase that Bosco used seems to me to refer to Catholics who have rejected the traditions of their own church and who no longer seem entirely happy with church policy of an ‘auto da fe’ against people who start earthquakes and the like (as they did in Lisbon).

I’d say that this encyclical also brings into question Chalcedon’s historical argument. Whatever good Christian principles the RCC may be standing for now, it seems to me that there were periods where it was completely ‘off the rails’ making it very difficult to sustain the argument that at that time it was part of the church that Christ founded.

Gareth – I’d be interested to know why, as a convert from Judaism, you chose the RCC expression of Christianity rather than another.

I did in the past asked myself the question: If I were from a Jewish background and became convinced that Jesus was the Messiah, what would be the most natural expression? and it seemed to me that the Scottish Free Presbyterians might fit the description.

My problem with them is basically that they seem to concentrate far too much on the Old Testament, but that might help with someone from a Jewish background; there would be a sense of continuity, which there should be.

I don’t think I’d consider the RCC, particularly in the light of the encyclical I referenced, where they didn’t seem to keen on the commandment ‘love your neighbour’, especially when it came to their Jewish neighbours.

Chalcedon – the remark was nasty, but it seems to me it was anti-Catholic and not anti-anything else. It points to a dark and sordid period in the 18th century when the communities he mentions were the innocent victims of some grotesque thinking within the RCC (coming right from the top) – and he’s basically trying to indicate that that is somehow normal for the RCC.

If we look, at say Luther’s writings on the Jews, we’ll see that such views were, lamentably, widespread. SO we either take the view that the possession of such views across the spectrum indicates that all churches have no validity, or that they were all infected by the culture within which they existed; I think I know which way I’m likely to go there.

…. and (as you know) I take the opposite view. I don’t think that the Church that Christ built on Peter can be connected with any particular organisation.

Also – the same with theologians (such as Luther, Calvin to name but two). Despite giving tremendous insights, many of them are despicably flawed. I don’t understand how anybody could describe themselves as a ‘Calvinist’, even if they do find themselves well disposed towards his Institutes, knowing what he did to Servetus (‘that worthless Spaniard’ as he describes him towards the beginning of his commentary on John)

So if you look for the Church that Christ founded as any of the organisations that exist, you’re going to be disappointed.

Good brother Chalcedon, you think the passage of years erases the anti Semitic nature of the Cc? There is no such thing as time. Catholics now try to dismiss what the CC has done to the Jews as being in the past. Sorry…you’ve got to suck it up. You can call me names and say im stupid, by CC is still in chains of history.

at what point did I say that? Christians believe in this thing called repentance and forgiveness. A fellow called Jesus who, I think you claim to know, had a lot to say about. You wonder why I doubt your claim?

That’s rite good brother Quiav. Many jewish people have nothing nice to say about Christianity. Ive been told, and this is common, that Jesus sacrifice was forbidden and wrong, because human sacrifice is evil.

Good brother Quiav, you hit on a most important idea, I guess you didn’t even notice. The anti Christ will be from the people that crucified the Lord. The Roman guards had a leader. He might have ben from the mid east.

Following the entirely unacceptable anti-Jewish racism in Bosco’s remarks above, I would point out that there is a kind of logic to the recent extremism we have been seeing in discussion of “pure” doctrinal matters on this blog. It tends naturally in the direction of exclusion. It is interesting to note the points of confluence between the streams of Bosco’s nihilist (non-church) bile and some of the “intellectual” traditional comment (which is also, please note, from outside the Catholic Church – and like Bosco militantly attempting to undermine it.

Due to the directly racist comments above, I am motivated to provide a new series in my occasional spirituality posts. This will be on the Community of the Beatitudes. It will be a comprehensive and critical look at the inside of a Jewish Catholic community of the charismatic renewal in France.

Thanks Bosco: your racist bile has motivated me to write something about Jewish Catholic community life. I have already sent a message to Chalcedon proposing a series on this.

Let’s just be honest here: you an an ignorant all-round … tosser who just comes here to cause a bloody fight. Right? Maybe I’ll get moderated before you, but I would rather be sent off the damned playing field while putting up a fight than give into your shit any longer, you bigoted bastard.

There. You got your long-awaited response, you infantile primitive simple-minded puerile dimwitted heretic. You are allowed free reign on this blog to produce your stream-of-consciousness nihilism. But use it for anti-Jewish racist remarks and I will call you out for the fucker you are, clown.

If anyone objects to my words or my manner, please ban me and show where moderation really stands here: with anti-Jewish racist remarks or with the complete and uncompromising rejection of them.

If Quiavid wants to act as apologist for Bosco’s anti-Jewish racism, that should be no surprise. SSPX sheltered a fugitive French Nazi and moved him from one monastic house to another until the police finally caught him. It is well documented.

Start playing the purity card and you can end up with very dodgy neighbours.

I was engaged to a Hebrew girl. I wouldn’t call her Jewish but she considered herself Jewish, even though she didn’t practice it. Nor her parents. But her parents insisted on a Jewish wedding. And I agreed. Her father was beat up by the brownshirts in Germany and his family was run out of Germany.

“As Cain was a wanderer and an outcast, not to be killed by anyone but marked with the sign of fear on his forehead, so the Jews . . . against whom the
voice of the blood of Christ cries out . . . although they are not to be killed they must always be dispersed as wanderers upon the face of the earth.”(1)

(1) Migne, Patrologia, CCXV, 1291.

Pope Eugenius IV, in 1442, issued the following decree:

“We decree and order that from now on, and for all time, Christians shall not eat or drink with Jews; nor admit them to feasts, nor cohabit with them, nor bathe with them. Christians shall not allow Jews to hold civil honors over Christians, or to exercise public offices in the State. Jews cannot be merchants, Tax Collectors, or agents in the buying and selling of the produce and goods of Christians, nor their Procurators, Computers or Lawyers in matrimonial matters, nor Obstetricians; nor can they have association or partnership with Christians. No Christian can leave or bequeath anything in his last Will and Testament to Jews or their congregations.

Say, good brother Gareth, you should leave the catholic church post haste. Look at how racist it is. And if you don’t leave it, that means you subscribe to its racism.

I can’t imagine why Gareth thought it was anti-semitic. If Bosco had described me as an ‘English loving Scot’, he would (a) have insulted me by suggesting that I wasn’t a true Scotsman (since the stereotype is that Scots have a chip on their shoulder about the English) and (b) he would have insulted the Scots in general by pointing to the fact that they’re still sore about the fact that William Wallace lost to the English in 1298 – making them a bunch of sore losers. Such a statement would clearly have been anti-Scottish – with no bad reflection at all on the English – so I don’t understand why Gareth took Bosco’s statement in the way he did.

I have observed your obscure games for some time, and you don’t impress me one bit with your feigned ignorance about why I might be offended. You are not really with it on racism, are you? Get with it.

“Jew loving Catholics” ?

Sorry, what racism DON’T you see in that? Proper Christians (i.e. the “saved”) should hate Jews. Yes?

Either stand up against this shit or shut up, Jock. But for Christ’s sake don’t try to justify the fucking clown’s racism.

The remark is offensive, because it is anti-Catholic. He is basically slandering all Catholics by stating that all true Catholics hate Jews. He’s basically accusing Catholics of being racist and accusing Catholicism of being systemically racist.

Anyway, that’s how I understood it – that’s how I still understand it. I’m sorry if I got it wrong.

The remark was offensive and nasty, but not for the reasons you stated.

I haven’t a clue what you mean by ‘obscure games’ – but I’m coming to the conclusion that you see hidden agendas and obscure motives in just about everything.

Modern era. Ok, lets look at whats happening now.
Ive always admired the CC for not backing down on same sex marriage, but now, the Holy Father seems to welcome this. If not welcome, he tolerates it. Kim Davis got to see the Pope and he gave her his blessings, as he would do for anybody, but later, the Vatican official press said that the Holy Father did not endose what she did. Then, the Pontiff had a meeting with a former student of his who is gay, and the gay dude brought along his loverboy to meet the Holy Father. I can see why Quiav the Great is upset.

Complicating the tale even further, when a Vatican spokesman denied that the Pope’s meeting with Davis was intended as an endorsement of her cause, he emphasized that Francis’ only private meeting at the Vatican Embassy in Washington was with a former student from Argentina.

I will probably contribute something to this blog at Pentecost on the subject of Jewish Catholics in France. Until then goodbye. I once again find the dominating company here unbearably juvenile. I may have second thoughts and not return at all. Time for reflection. Enjoy your pointless waffle with the Clown.

For those unfamilar with the earlier history of the troll “Bosco”, this is his standard signature school-yard bully boy sing-song chant, used when he believes he has driven a contributor off a blog. (It is like the chest-beating action of a chimpanzee.)
This was his standard sing-song victory chant on the old Damian Thompson Daily Telegraph blog, when people frequently gave up and left, saying they were tired of the trolling.

I’ll make one final point about this trolling, but doubtless nobody involved in this blog is actually listening.

The “Bosco” character was a troll invented six years ago, specifically from the Dawkinsite atheist camp, designed to take on traditionalist Catholics by using a character who claimed to be a fundamentalist US Christian. Gradually we exposed the character until he admitted he never attended the “Calvary Chapel” and didn’t see the point of Christian fellowship. He is simply an invented character who is designed by the atheist camp to throw Christian discussion into confusion. It actually works quite well, to give them credit.

We never actually proved who this troll was being run by, but he appeared immediately after the well known trolls “Micky Ross” and “Markus River” were banned by the Telegraph. His aggressive anti-Catholic attacks were of the same character and there were linguistic similarities, as those who studied these matters proved.

Of course, it would be a great irony if Jessica’s blog was being trolled – with her generous liberal toleration – by the very same bullying people who drove her off the Telegraph all that time back in 2010.

I shall certainly be taking a break, as I said above. I may return at Pentecost with another spirituality article. I don’t know. I may just decide I’m tired of the whole infantile game on these blogs. The trolling must stop or just say goodbye to your audience. Have you looked at the stats lately?

IF IT ACTS LIKE A TROLL;
IF IT SOUNDS LIKE TROLL;
IF IT SMELLS LIKE A TROLL;
IF IT BULLIES LIKE A TROLL,
AND WHINES TO PROTEST IT MEANT NO HARM;
JUST TO GET ACCEPTED AGAIN,
THEN STARTS THE BULLYING AGAIN:
THEN IT IS A TROLL.

I’ve no idea what Bosco things he’s doing, but a vert clear idea of what he achieves here. To anyone not of his narrow and bigoted view, he comes across as three parts ignorance to one part nonsense. From that point of view the clown avatar is appropriate.

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." J.R.R. Tolkien <br>“I come not from Heaven, but from Essex.” William Morris